


Mangata

by madryn



Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Compliant, Endgame Thomas/Gally, Gen, Healing, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Post-The Death Cure, Safe Haven, past newtmas, thomally
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2019-03-21 11:15:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13739709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madryn/pseuds/madryn
Summary: Gally's head had turned upwards, staring up at the moon and the stars. Their light illuminated his features, and Thomas couldn't help but think that, even now, he was beautiful. Despite the red eyes and the tears and the despair, Gally cut an imposing figure; like the statue of a mythological god highlighted in silver.





	Mangata

**Author's Note:**

> shoutout to all eight of you who're gonna read this. the real mvps. 
> 
> also this might get a part two bc i'm incapable of writing endings that aren't ambiguous ???

_"If you've ever been my friend, kill me." The black blood was pouring out of Newt's mouth, now. It was dripping sluggishly down his chin and his neck, thick droplets collecting in his exposed collarbones. It was falling on Thomas's chest from the position they had found themselves in and Thomas tried to hold in the overwhelming urge to gag. Newt's eyes were clear in a way they hadn't been before, and Thomas's heart plummeted when the older boy screamed, "Kill me!"_

Thomas awoke with a start and a jagged scream.

His body was covered in a sheen of cold sweat and the cold air pushing into his cabin left him feeling empty and alone. His hands had grasped the makeshift sheets upon his bed with all of his strength, and he hurriedly let go before he could rip them. Supplies were hard to go by, here on the island. The only reason Thomas had been privy to his own hut was because of everything he had done to get them here, to get them safe. He had a hard time accepting it, originally, but he was glad he did; the walls did a lot in regards to masking the sounds of his screams.

A hand went up to his hair and scrubbed through it, rough pants making his broad chest heave and expand. A candle was burning in the corner of his room and the four walls around him felt too much like he was back in the maze, back in the solitary box of his confinement, back in the tunnels. Thomas jerked himself up and out of the cabin, breathing quicker and shallower, barefoot and in only a light t-shirt and cargo pants.

Every time Thomas blinked, he was taken back. Back to the city. Back to dragging Newt through the rebel-ridden streets. Back to feeling the knife plunge itself deep into Newt's chest and holding him as he died. Newt's voice echoed in Thomas's head like a ghost.

_Please, Tommy._

Thomas started running, bare feet scraping on the foliage and body shivering and chest heaving. Newt's death was still too fresh, too soon. Newt was Thomas's best friend, his confidant, his lover.

Newt was the person that Thomas had trusted the most. Together they had escaped the maze. Together they had survived the Scorch. Together they had worked to get their Minho back, even though Newt had been slowly rotting from the inside out. Rotting, because Thomas could not get over himself and trust Teresa. Rotting, because Thomas let Newt go with him instead of staying with Gally and waiting for the serum. The serum that would have saved him for long enough; long enough to _cure_ him.

_Please._

He pushed himself faster, running passed the camp's perimeter and into the foliage of the forest. His feet passed over the soft grasses and crunchy leaves and into the loose sand of the beach. Thomas was running fast; faster than when he had been in the maze, faster than when he was being chased by cranks in the dark tunnels underground. No, cranks and mazes may have been scary, but they could never compare to the horrors that lay within Thomas's own head. Never compare to the haunting memory of hearing Newt's soft grunt as the knife broke skin and landed true.

He needed something, anything to shock him out of it. Shock him out of the pain and the memories and watching the life drain out of Newt's black and clouded eyes. And that's what Newt had always feared, wasn't it? His mind was dead, but his body alive. Losing himself to the virus. Living as a monster.

Thomas tripped over a piece of driftwood and landed hard.

He was barely into the water of the ocean, the cold, black water giving his body the shock it needed to snap back out of itself.

He was too weak, though. Or maybe he just did not have the strength to go on.

Thomas didn't know why he was alive, anymore. Newt was dead. Teresa, too. Chuck. Alby. Winston. Ben. And more, too. They were all dead and Thomas couldn't go a day without seeing the blood on his hands.

He was tainted by their ghosts, truly. Minho was hurting, too, Thomas knew that, but- well, Minho wasn't the one who couldn't keep Newt from shoving a knife in his chest, was he? No. No, Minho had a different hurt; he mourned for Newt just as badly, but his guilt wasn't as overwhelmingly horrid as Thomas's own.

Thomas was hurt and he was tired and he allowed himself to just lie in the cold and soak in the sharp, biting feeling of the water lapping across his skin as he stared up at the night sky. The stars twinkled brilliantly out here.

_Newt would have loved this,_ he thought.

Thomas did not know how long he laid there, shivering, drenched in the ocean tide and sobbing from his nightmares and his memories, when a voice startled him into looking up.

The boy was tall and broad, eyebrows pinched in an expression that showed the worry he was attempting to cover up with faux indifference. His gait was easy, fluid as he quickly made his way down from the forest line and onto the shifting sands of the beach. The piece of driftwood that Thomas had tripped over earlier was easily crunched under the boy's foot as he made his way down.

"What the shuck are you doing, Greenie?" Gally's voice was too loud in the quiet of the night, the only other sounds were of the waves; it was still too dark for the shrill calls of the indigenous birds and the trees were too far to hear their rustling in the ocean breeze. "How long have you been out here?"

Thomas wanted to reply, but his throat was tight and raw and his mind too splattered to cooperate. He could only raise his head and look at up Gally with hooded, sunken eyes.

"You dumb shank." Gally grunted, before stooping down and sliding one arm under Thomas's knees and the other behind his back. The Keeper of the Builders lifted the other easily, hitching him up further against his chest to fix his grip on the lithe boy when he did so. Gally huffed something under his breath, but his eyes were pointedly staring ahead and Thomas was too tired to figure out or, frankly, care what he had said.

Thomas slowly allowed himself to relax into the heat and safety of Gally's arms. The rhythmic thumps of Gally's heavy footfalls accompanied by the gentle swaying as he walked helped lull Thomas into a sense of safety and protection. Thomas's arm reached up to hook itself around Gally's thick neck, and he curled his head into it as well.

_This is nice_ , he thought.

That was the last conscious thought Thomas had before he drifted off into a deep, uninterrupted sleep.

\-----

The light was soft in a way that Thomas had never experienced.

Well, he doesn't think he ever experienced it.

It shone delicately into the room, flickering as white curtains fluttered in the oceanic breeze that came in through the open window. Potted plants littered the room sporadically, but in a way that felt cozy; the smell of them sweetened the air, and the pots themselves were stained in bright, happy colors. Miscellaneous pieces of wood and metal were strewn around messily, but Thomas allowed his eyes to flutter passed them as he continued to explore the room from his nest.

He did not know whose room he was in, but he could not find the will in himself to care. It was warm and cozy in a way his own hut would probably never be. Homey and fulfilling in a way that Thomas had not experienced since the Glade, and probably a long, long time before that, if ever. 

Thomas stretched out his toes, but became confused at the sensation he received. He belatedly realized something was wrapped around them. Pushing himself up with his elbows, Thomas pulled back the thick blankets and was shocked into stillness at the appearance of thick bandages. He did not remember bandaging his feet, nor someone doing it for him. Brow furrowed, he reached out to undo the white linen.

"I wouldn't do that, Greenie."

Thomas jumped, glaring at the boy as he walked into the cozy, warm hut. His arms were laden with food, cooked by Frypan no less, and a smile was rather uncharacteristically soft on his lips. He carried the food over to a desk overflowing with junk, and he shoved some stuff aside to fit the misshapen bowls and cups on the wooden structure.

"What happened to my feet?" Thomas asked, too-loud in the softness of the hut.

"You're a dumb shank, that's what." Gally huffed out, but not meanly. He rolled his eyes, but continued to speak: "You ran barefoot for a longways and must've scratched yourself something nasty on the ground."

There was a pregnant pause as Thomas inspected his feet, and then:

"Is this your hut, Gally?" Thomas hadn't meant to ask the question, but it fell out anyways.

"Yeah," the broader of the two shrugged, embarrassed. A hand reached up to scratch at the back of his neck, before making an aborted gesture towards the food piled upon his desk. "I grabbed you some food from Frypan. I figured it would hurt a lot if you were to travel as far as the mess is, so I just got it for you."

"Oh. Thanks, Gally." Thomas said, surprised and a little pleased.

"Yeah," the small, hidden smile was back. "You're welcome to stay here, if you'd like. I have to go work on the southeastern huts, so it's all yours."

He looked up at Thomas for a second to see his reaction, before coughing into his elbow and snagging his jacket off of the back of his desk chair. Gally shrugged it on, tilted his head to Thomas, and then let himself out of the hut. His shoulders were broad, almost too broad, and stretched the jacket near to its seams. His cargo pants hugged his legs, tight, showcasing his thighs and the curve of his calves.

"Bye." Thomas said, belatedly, distractedly. Since when was he so interested in Gally's body type?

Thomas shook himself, literally, and swept his feet over the side of the bed. Frypan's cooking was too good to pass up, truly. He started to rest his weight on his right foot, before hissing at the sharp pain that echoed up his calf. Thomas steeled himself, though, and stood. The first few steps were agony and Thomas had to bite his lip to keep from yelling out. Luckily, though, the desk was close to the bed in the confines of the hut and he collapsed onto the chair, panting, quickly enough.

The pain had somewhat diminished his appetite, but Thomas knew that he had to eat something, so he dug in to the food that Gally had received for him. Despite most meals consisting of the same thing - plants foraged and birds caught by the hunting parties - Frypan had a way of making it taste absolutely delicious.

Or, that was just his empty stomach talking. Either way, it was amazing.

\---

"Hey, shank!"

Thomas was shocked awake at the noise, confused and disoriented. He felt too-warm and his body was relaxed and soft with sleep, something he had not felt in a long while.

Thomas lifted his head from the pillow, blinking blearily up at Minho, who was hanging off of the entryway to the hut with a bright smile on his face.

"You've been gone so long that we thought you were dead! Should've known to ask _Gally_ where you were, huh?" Minho snickered, eyes twinkling and looking lighter than Thomas had ever seen him, despite the contrasting darkness of the night behind him.

"Are you _drunk_ , Minho?" Thomas asked, shocked.

With a giggle, Minho strutted into the room and headed towards a cabinet that Thomas had not seen earlier. He flicked the small wooden latch open, before reaching into the compartment with both of his hands. When his large, calloused hands came back into sight, they were loosely holding the necks of two dense bottles of something amber and-

"Gally made his _still?_ "

"Oh, fuck yeah, he did! The ugly shank's been hiding it from us this _whole time_! Said he was waiting for a special occasion, ha!" Minho shook his head with a snort, before waving both bottles towards the door, "come on, Thomas! You're missing the party!"

With that said, Minho made his way out of the hut in a strut. The bottles were loosely swinging at his sides, and Minho chuckled as he tripped over the lip of the entryway. His hair was in a wild array and his clothes ruffled and he looked happier and looser than Thomas had ever seen him. Looser than the first time he saw Minho gliding in through the maze doors, looser than the scorch and definitely looser than he had been in the Last City.

That was expected, though.

Considering Minho was tortured.

Anyways.

Thomas gingerly removed the blankets away from his body, mindful of the fact that they were not his own. He reached down and poked softly at the bottom of his left foot and then, when that did not pain him, poked his foot again, harder. The sting was slight and far less than what it had been before, so Thomas took that as a good sign; he knew his limits after so long, knew that his feet were good to walk on—albeit gingerly.

The young man stood up from where he was seated at the edge of Gally's bed, and was hit by a sudden lightheadedness that spoke volumes of how deeply and relaxed he had slept. He stretched his arms up above his head until his shoulders popped and moaned in relief; he cracked his fingers one at a time and flexed his toes.

After relieving his body of some of its tension, Thomas snagged a jacket off of the ground without thinking and headed out of the hut and into the darkness that surrounded Safe Haven.

He limped slowly towards where he could hear the rowdy roars of conversation and deep guffaws of laughter that inevitably came from Minho and their people. The bonfire, an event from the Glade that Frypan had suggested they bring back to lighten spirits, was a bright expanse of orange and red and it illuminated the faces of all the people that they had saved from the horrors of the world and the painful grip of WCKD. All of the people that _he_ had saved.

_And the memory of the one he didn't_.

They were very clearly happy, which lightened Thomas's heart. Sonya was sitting on Harriet's lap as the two girls from Group B exchanged sultry looks and drank from a shared canteen—their fellow girls cheering them on in a drunken ruckus. Brenda and Frypan were engaging in a very heated, albeit friendly, debate—since arriving to Safe Haven, the two had struck up an unexpected, yet wonderful, friendship. Minho was entertaining anyone that cared to listen to him, as was Minho's way.

It was relieving, honestly.

As Thomas closed in on the camp, he took notice of the one person he had not let himself dare to look for, yet.

Gally was sat, looking as comfortable as Gally was ought to look, hunched over a bowl of Frypan's stew as if he was prepared to fight to the death over it. Two girls were trying their hardest to engage the resident bear in conversation, but Gally was relying solely on his eyebrows to carry his side of the interaction as he stared resolutely into the fire. When the two girls noticed Thomas approaching from behind Gally, though, they started giggling and ran off towards a bigger group of girls. Gally stared after them, finally, looking rather adorably confused.

Thomas sat heavily beside Gally on the log, startling the taller boy into spilling a few drips of his stew.

"Thomas," Gally nodded, a blush high on his cheeks and highlighting the curve of his ear.

"Hey, Gally." The young man replied, a slight smirk curving his pink lips up, much to the chagrin of Gally. The taller boy took a second to look Thomas up and down - for the sake of his health, of course - only to stop and stare at Thomas's shoulders with a slack jaw. "You okay?"

"Is-" he exhaled in a hiss, "Is that my jacket?"

Thomas frowned and looked down at himself, "Oh. I guess so. Sorry; I forgot that I wasn't in my own hut for a minute, I guess."

"No, no," a swallow "It looks good on you. Keep it."

Gally looked nearly as bright of a red as a tomato at this point, and Thomas tried to take pity on the taller boy.

"No, really, it's fine, Gal-"

"Bye."

With that, Gally got up and hurried away. Thomas sat, dumbfounded, as he watched the broad shoulders and defined legs disappear into the darkness that leached away at the edge of the fire's rays.

"Ah shuck, Thomas!" Minho slurred as he flopped down next to the boy in the spot that Gally had recently vacated. "Let the big clunkhead down easy, at _least_."

"What do you mean?" He asked, confused.

"Gally-" Minho motioned in the direction he left in with a flippant hand: "Let him down easy. Or at least let the shank take you on a date. The crush he has on you in _insane_!"

The thought struck Thomas near to his very core.

"I- I can't do that to Newt."

Newt was dead. Newt was dead because of Thomas and he did not deserve to just _move on_ from that. He deserved to rot in his guilt, more like.

"Thomas-" Minho's voice shook, and Thomas looked up to see the older boy's face distraught and horrified. Thomas was confused, briefly, but- "Newt wasn't your fault, Thomas."

"Minho-"

"No. No, Thomas, _listen_ to me. You want to argue whose fault it is? Blame it on me for getting captured. If I hadn't been captured, then Newt never would've been infected by all those cranks in the city. Blame it on WCKD; they're the ones who put us in this damn situation in the first place. Hell, blame whoever you damn well please. But don't you _ever_ blame yourself. I won't stand for it, and I know for a fact that Newt wouldn't either. Newt died, Thomas, it's okay to mourn him, but don't kill yourself in the process."

Thomas's eyes glistened with tears that reflected darkly in the glowing flames as the two boys pulled each other into a tight embrace. He had not realized how desperately he had needed to know whether or not Minho blamed him. It lifted his heart a whole lot to hear Minho speak the words with such utter convinction.

"I'm sorry Newt didn't leave you a letter." He said, quietly.

"He never knew if he was going to see me again. I'm grateful that he did." There was a pregnant pause, before Minho continued, "I loved him, too."

"Yeah. I know." A breath. "It's okay to keep loving him, even though he's gone."

"I know."

— . — . — . —

In a time span of two weeks, Safe Haven had been completely transformed.

Two weeks of healing and two weeks of hard work meant that Thomas was bone tired on his walk back to his hut late into the night. Though the stars shone brightly this far away from the touch of a city, there still wasn't much light to see off of, which meant that Thomas had to mostly use his sense of the camp's layout to return to his hut. He had spent a good portion of the day with Minho and Vince while they worked together to map as much territory of their new home as they dared. It was tiring, but fulfilling, and Thomas was excited for a long, deep sleep.

Only a few people tended to be out so late at night. Everyone had a job to do, much like the way it had been in the maze, so people tended to sleep pretty much the entire night. Even when people had group hangouts, they tended to be inside one of the huts, because of the curfew that Vince had set in place. So, it was strange for Thomas to see a shadowy figure highlighted by the soft light of a thick candle.

The figure was dark from a distance, and Thomas contemplated whether or not he was bothered enough to know who it was. On one hand, he was tired and didn't know who it was sitting out there on the beach. On the other hand, though? Thomas was awfully damn curious to know who was disregarding Vince's curfew.

After pausing for a minute to think about his options, Thomas decided ' _fuck it_ ' and turned towards the beach.

He made sure his footsteps were loud in the quiet of the night, because Thomas knew from experience that people tended not to like it when you snuck up on them. The only sounds came from the lapping of the ocean waves and the sand crunching beneath Thomas's heavy boots. The path that Thomas had originally been taking was not actually too far away from the figure on the beach, so he neared them fairly quickly.

As Thomas grew closer, he finally recognized basic features of the person.

It was obvious as to whom it was.

Thomas kept walking, though, without a single fault in his step. Once beside the other, Thomas sat down heavily in the sand beside him. Neither spoke for a few minutes, and Thomas refused to look at the boy before he had a chance to speak. So, he sat.

But, Thomas was not very patient.

He stole a glance to his left, to look at the other boy and the sight shocked him.

"Are you crying, Gally?" he asked, concerned.

"Slim it, Greenie." Gally growled, but the effect was ruined by his bright red eyes and the tears falling from them. It was a sight that made Thomas feel uncomfortable, because it was hard to remember sometimes that Gally was not unbreakable: he was a person, too-a person affected by everything that he had gone through, too.

"Gal-" Thomas started, but Gally cut him off.

"He's dead because of me, Thomas. I don't get to come back from that. I shouldn't be here, safe and sound, while he's dead."

It wasn't hard to figure out who Gally was talking about. The moment was distant for Thomas now, and he hadn't ever thought that it would have affected Gally so greatly.

"Gally, I forgive you." Thomas said, because it felt like the right thing to do.

"No, you don't. I know you don't. How can you forgive me when I don't even forgive myself?" Gally's head had turned upwards, staring up at the moon and the stars. Their light illuminated his features, and Thomas couldn't help but think that, even now, he was beautiful. Despite the red eyes and the tears and the despair, Gally cut an imposing figure; like a white marble statue of a Greek god.

"I know it's hard, Gally, to forgive yourself-" because he did. Because he knew he'd never forgive himself for what he did to Newt. How he let Newt die. "But Chuck would want you to. I hadn't thought about it until Newt's words struck it into me, but... You were just a pawn, Gally. WCKD's pawn. They stung you and they used you as part of the Maze Trial; Chuck sacrificed himself for me, but that wasn't on you. It's on them, Gally. It's on WCKD."

Thomas's words hit Gally, and they hit him deeply. Thomas could see the tears welling up in his eyes, more so than they already had been, and the boy looked so utterly young and lost in that moment.

"You're not too bad, huh, Greenie?" Gally tried to play off how obviously affected he was, but they both knew it fell flat when Gally sniffled and tugged his jacket tighter around himself.

"You're not so bad yourself, Gal." Thomas smiled at him, tiny and comforting.

Thomas didn't expect it when Gally threw himself at Thomas, though. Did not expect the fierce hug that Gally pulled him in for as the taller boy cried onto Thomas's shoulder. He was always so stoic and strong, that the idea of seeing Gally reduced to a crying mess was a sight that Thomas never wanted to see again. He held the other boy, because that's really all he could do in the moment.

"I'm sorry about Newt, Thomas." Gally whispered after he had calmed slightly. "I know he meant a lot to you. I'm sorry I couldn't do more for him."

"It's not your fault. He wouldn't want us blaming ourselves; he'd call us both bloody twats if he could, honestly." They both chuckled at that, but it was forced and cold.

"We're both a fucking mess, aren't we?" Gally said, his arms still tight around Thomas's midsection and Thomas's arms still linked protectively around his shoulders. "A big fucking mess."

"Yeah, but it's okay." Thomas told him. "Safe Haven's a place of healing."

"Do you believe that, really?" The taller boy asked, not looking at Thomas, because he was afraid of the answer. "That we can heal from this?"

Thomas answered him honestly: "Yeah. Yeah, I really do."

Thomas was haunted by Newt's death, and Gally was haunted by Chuck's death. But, they were free, now. They were free to heal and to live and to be safe. They had lost people, valuable people, on the way - they'd never forget that, of course not. But, maybe it was time for them to start focusing on living rather than just surviving, now.

(And maybe, after they're healed, Thomas can do something crazy like kiss the hell out of a Gally and finally act on his crush without feeling guilty and bad for doing so. But, that will come later.)


End file.
